I would think that most people that bought after 10k, only purchased smaller amounts of btc (lots of these ppl), While the remaining volume belongs to whales that manipulate the price. Obviously the whales sold it off as they are mostly in here to make profit by trading. I dont think to many ppl hold after the drop at 12k, (ofcourse except the long term hodlers that got in pre 2017 (under 3k))

Interesting, but with tx everyday does it not look like an exchange? either transfering new funds to cold storage or making a new cold storage?

This is the problem we are facing today, everyone is aware of BTC, but they dont really know the usefullness of it. Ppl just want to have it because they think they can profit from it.

But if the mass got to learn what btc could provide in monetary terms, I believe most ppl would want to use it as well. it is just the problem that the mass have not been fed with what btc could provide.

THIS!!!

This is really the question most of us should be asking, instead of constantly worrying about the price.

But, it is quite hard to measure the success though as. Well at the beginning, from a few dollars to a thousand dollar was definitely a big milestone for BTC and should be accounted in the measure of success. However, from there on the price is not as relevant anymore (perhaps if we can break 20k). 

What is more important are companies / industries applying blockchain tech, the growth of this should also be added as a part of BTC success.
We could look at the price and volume and try to measure the success of BTC through that, but really it would not be a real value of its success as the price and volume is not sustainable and could drop anytime. Its real success should be counted through ppls usage of the blockchain tech.

I guess you are right, most ppl are expecting a rejection, hence an unexpected approval might fuel some interest enough for us to go back on the green side.  Yeah it has been a sad year in terms of pricing, but on the otherside we have a lot of companies now exploring blockchain, and I personally think that we have bottomed out here, just waiting for some big news for a pump.

Volume is still too low, typically we see a spike in volume, and then price follows. Should be bottom somewhere around this area so scoop up what you can folks (just my opinion)

I think they will approve. SEC giving approval for an ETF will be good pr for crypto overall. It will lessen the doubts and fear that the general public are having right now. A lot of people might want them to decline it, as we all know if it gets approved the prices will in one way, shape or form more regulated and the 100x pumps era will forever gove. I might be wrong, and this might spike the prices though. But for long term sustaion price regulation are a must anyway, we can already learn from just one year back. High price spikes are not sustainable, everything needs balance. 

Interesting, however still a speculation. In my opinion btc needs something more for a price spike (which is really not that important atm) something that shows the usefullness or a major player accepting crypto or something like that. But interesting indeed.

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We have already entered the era of blockchain although many of us do not yet realize it. These technologies will bring great positive changes to our lives. Meanwhile, I also believe in Bitcoin.
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Agree, most companies are / have already applied blockchain tech or are preparing it for future usage. It is just not widely known to the public yet. Blockchain will most def. survive for a long era. (and hopefully so will btc)

You sir are correct, for longterm growth we most definitely need a major player like the SEC to acknowledge btc. I am more optimisic on price than you are though, as I do believe an approval would spike the price. As we dropped so low this year I do think at least a 100% increase is not too hard. But we shall all see how it plays out.

We dont need bitcoin because it is a electronically currency, we should not trust banks and governments blindly. Well i suppose put a lot of money in any man and he might turn into a greedy monster. So the problem itself is our human nature, we are so damn greedy and if we dont want more, we want control, which is what the banks and govn has accomplished so far. Since we cannot fix our greed and desire for more, what we could fix is the trust system, which only (as of now) possible through btc and blockchain tech.

Lol, really, most ppl here in the forums prolly got in quite early. So at worst i would imagine most you are at break even or a slight loss perhaps. But people tend to forget where we started, around the hundreds (which are the hardcore ppl and actually ppl that invested a lot), So again, these ppl are still in for a massive profit even at this price. Besides the pump from last year was nothing short of ridiculous and bound to drop back.

But the question is not if btc will be zero, that is a dumb question, anything that has some sort of usefullness will never go to zero. So your question should be is bitcoin going to have a value? is btc going to be valuable to ppl, and what brings value to btc.

So we all knew the SEC were going to delay the ETF decision again, however this will be the last time they can delay it, and a decision will be made sometime before February 2019. How do you guys think this will affect the price of btc and crypto overall. Will it have as strong impact as last year when the big guys jumped the future train?

The best time to invest in anything, is when you have the funds and are ready to loose them. Never invest into anything that is uncertain without being ready to loose it all.

With that said though, BTC might go a little lower before bottoming out. We might see a fall down to the mid 2k, and hopefully a bounce from there. But do your own research and studies, do not bet your money on other peoples beliefs, no matter who they are! Cause at the end of the day your money is yours and your decisions are yours.

FYI, im swooping in on every drop right now

Unfortunately for bitcoin there is no ground breaking reason why BTC has to be the leading crypto, it just happened to be the first and most widely known cryptocurrency out there.

Now most of the other ones "altcoins" are all based somewhat of the btc blockchain tech. And some of these may even be better than BTC in terms of efficiency and security. But like many have stated here, BTC is the most known crypto out there by far. Hence the only reason of why BTC has to be the one is that it is widely known by the mass and have been somewhat accepted as a payment system in some areas of the world.

But to simplify the thinking, we could think of blockchain tech as the "internet" and btc as the browsers. BTC could be like "internet explorer" but who knows in the future? just like "IE" kinda died out there are new faster more efficient browsers like chrome, firefox etc.

Blockchain tech will definitely be leading us to a new era in technology, but as with everything it needs its time to adapt for general usage.

BTC on the other hand is facing a lot of competition, from other coins and newer ones that are indeed better for currency purposes. However, it is still the most widely used cryptocurrency by far. People do refer cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin it has always been like this. Hence I find it hard for bitcoin to not survive either. But again we do not know, the governements could come with their own cryptocurrencies and as citizens we would not have much of a choice other than to abide to that.

But one thing is almost certain, and that is that the technology of blockchain will grow, if it is the chain of bitcoin or another algorithm we do not know, but as the bitcoin chain is the father of all it will most certainly always stay relevant.

This!

The problem today is that most people see bitcoin as a way to make more money (by trading), but the real value in bitcoin has nothing to do with trading, we should see btc more like a stock for the blockchain technology. just like a regular stock price for any company. Price goes up on speculation and when it fails to meet peoples expectations it goes drops. I believe that most people that got into this world at the later stage were expecting a fast adoptation, and wanting to see btc as a a real currency, but as that has not happened yet, people fud as their expectations were not met.

I believe that the majority of people have misunderstood the whole crypto and bitcoin thing.
Bitcoin is marketed as the new currency, and as much as I would like this to be true, I do not believe that it will happen in the near future or at all. However, the mass (who purchased bitcoin and other alt coins during the hype phase, dec 2017) most of these people bought it in hope of that it would become some kind of currency, and they are not to blame, a lot of bitcoin pro advocates for this which is misleading because I believe that although most of us HOPE that it will become a currency, we still know that the government and the higher ups will not allow this. In the future we will see what will become of bitcoin as a currency, but as of right now we are far far away from it being considered as a real currency throughout the world.

However, with that said, it has nothing with bitcoin being worthless, because it certainly is not. Bitcoin itself may not be so useful (if not a currency) but the innovative technology behind creating bitcoins is ground breaking. And most definitely one of the greatest if not the greatest innovation of the 21st century after the upcoming of internet. And that is the blockchain.

In my opinion we need to re-market bitcoin, and add the value of blockchain into it, because really, the blockchain is what matters. Bitcoin is just a biproduct from the chain. And we need let the mass know that the blockchain is absolutely not bound to currency or anything related to currency, but that the blockchain can be applied to almost anything that we are currently using today, but making it safer, more trustworthy and more efficient.

And also we need to stop giving a shit about the price, they said internet was garbage when it first came, who the hell would use it. It had it spikes it had its dumps, but I dare you to live without internet for a week today! doable, but damn hard!